It is quite common for those who work within the library and archival professions to get caught up in the never ending twists and turns of technology. This particularly happens to those who are new to the profession. For instance, I can remember quite fondly of my graduate work at Wayne State University where I was absolutely convinced that librarians and archivists must not only understand programming, but they must also strive to do as much of their own programming as possible. Naivety is a wonderful thing, especially when you awake from it.

After more than ten years of professional experience, I’ve learned a great deal about librarianship as well as technology; moreover, these lessons have open my eyes to the various ways to approach the challenges of organizing, managing and disseminating content. In addition, it goes without saying, during this time technology has quickly evolved and changed in new and unexpected ways. While I’m no longer such a staunch proponent of librarians and archivists as programmers, I still hold on to a strong notion that librarians and archivists must become intimate with the tools within which they use. But this is nothing new, for librarians and archivists have always had a strong relationship with the tools and materials with which we’ve used. Not surprisingly the change has come from the types of tools and ways in which we use them.

This perspective can best be illustrated in my changing view of librarianship and programming. Over the past 10 years we’ve witnessed an explosion of new tools which are able to leverage the ubiquitous nature of the web. We now have at our finger tips scripting languages, JAVA, XHTML, XML, along with improved tools for the creation of relational databases, MS Access, File Maker, etc. These tools all allow us different means of presenting, organizing and delivering materials. No longer are we restricted to the expertise of others. Now, today, librarians and archivists have the ability of not only learning, but mastering tools, which build on our professional training. In other words, our understanding of classification and its principles provide us with the intellectual skill set useful in the designing and development of web accessible collections.

Moreover, our training as librarians and archivists provides us with something else when we come to the table of problem solving. Our training and skill set allows us to not only understand the tool, but allows us the ability to think through the problem. Rather then relying on the programmer or the skills found in one set of tools, we think of how to achieve the goals. That is, if we have to migrate data from one system to the next then we contemplate how best to do it, while maintaining the data integrity and efficiency of our efforts. We understand that we’ll have to sacrifice one, usually the efficiency of our efforts, for another, the integrity of the data.

No, I was wrong as a budding librarian, we didn’t need to become programmers. Rather we needed to build on our intellectual skills as librarians and archivists and wait for the tools to come to us.

Oh, I get it. “IT” – of course, the acronym for Information Technology. The name of the computer departments where I used to work. The place where all the “computer guys,” as I fondly referred to them, were busy working their techie magic.

However, when it comes to this particular blog format, a resource for archivists and librarians, “IT” takes on different connotations. What occurs to me is this concept, the quest for high-tech answers to make all our jobs, nay, our lives, easier and cooler, perhaps that is it. Having been teased about how uncool librarians and archivists are (by those not in the profession, natch), it is nice to be able to talk knowledgeably about computer use and social networking applications. It almost proves we are cool.

Certainly technology has made accessibility of library and archival material easier, and that is good. But all this computerization and the need of “computer guys” to create the next big thing is a little overwhelming. What are they trying to prove? Aren’t the existing tools enough? Many of them do similar tasks like helping people reconnect or share ideas. But how helpful are they? Sometimes I think these technology developers just want to come up with catchy names. Delicious, del.icio.us? Really?

Moreover, what is really daunting about the search for “IT” is that it probably will never be found, at least in its entirety. All of this reminds me of my obsession with the news and reading the paper. Many years ago a few people began discussing some current events, and I didn’t know what they were talking about. So I made it a mission to read the newspaper every day, as well as listen to the news on the radio, so I would always know what is going on. But the news is always going on; it will never end. Trying to know all the news is both productive and futile.

So it seems that the quest for “IT,” too, is both ends of that spectrum. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, ad nauseum have been interesting and useful tech tools. However, new technology will continue; some applications may be created that cause current tools to become obsolete. Will any of this ever be enough? Like chasing the wind, perhaps it is unattainable. But the quest certainly makes the work more interesting. And all these incarnations of technology should be documented for future researchers to study. Perhaps this will create a few jobs for archivists who have the foresight to collect and preserve it.

Database searching, the Internet, websites, email, blogs, social networking here there and everywhere.

What is it that we are seeking?

The leap that we had thought that we took into information technology is just a step. No giant leap, no crevasse to reach, no earth shattering change yet. The leap was a baby step to the next baby step to the next.

We read the literature and jump each year, each quarter into a new technology that will help us in our quest to reach users, to organize information, to migrate data. The next technology that will ease our burden, manage our info glut, make us smarter.

The core question and the reason that we started this blog is…HOW are we managing these technologies? The change? These baby steps?

For many institutions it seems to either be a “jump” or a “leap”. By this I define a “jump” as running to a technology without the benefit of a needs assessment or proper research. Questions such as the below come to mind:

How will this benefit my users?

What will be the net (and defined) gain to my institution?

Do I have the in-house expertise to assess this, implement it and maintain it?

How will I promote it?

Sometimes this occurs because management does not realize the planning steps needed for successful implementation. Educating them sometimes helps.

A “leap” is defined as realizing that your institution is behind and trying to leap up to be on par with other institutions.

Sometimes peer pressure affects this decision and the realization that you are the only institution without wireless forces a “leap” into new technologies. Planning questions that come to mind here include:

Do you have the staff training for this?

Are we able to pull along all other associated technologies, services and users to successfully integrate this “leap”?

I speak to students and working professionals every day that embrace technology but worry about whether we are choosing the best technology for the best service or just buckling under to the marketing of consumer products.

Does your institution need to Twitter? Why? To seem hip or to reach Generation C? Is Generation C your user base? Do you have a real Twitter plan for keeping it up to date and understanding how to optimize it?

It is our hope that this will be the venue in which you can do that.

One of the first things I did when I found out I was accepted into library school was to Google for blogs, wikis and podcasts from others like me: new to be librarians and archivists who were in or had recently graduated from their respective programs.

I figured it was 2008, surely there would be loads of blogs, Facebook groups, listservs to name a few places for this sort of thing.

I was wrong – there wasn’t really squat. Let me rephrase that, I found lots of things from other people looking to apply TO library school but nothing really detailing what it was like being IN library school. And what I could find on being IN library school fell into two camps: One camp was the very vague, mainly one-liners on random blogs and other social media sites such as, “I really like collection development.” Or there would be the opposite end of the spectrum where students used social media sites for research results or gave detailed accounts of their projects but then wouldn’t include reference materials of any sort for their readers to do further independent reading.

And the thing is, I didn’t really think I was looking for something really that vague or obsolete or unusual: I’m a new library and archivist student. I’m looking to connect with others like me. Why was this so difficult?

This is not to say, completely, that these type of blogs/wikis and the like were not out there; I eventually did find one or two that lead me to a few others, which lead me to a few moreand so on. But in reality, I felt like I was missing some super secret handshake that all my fellow students seemingly were totally getting. And it’s also not that I didn’t ask – I did ask on mailing lists, blogs and to my professors: What is the best place to keep up to date on library and
archival information? And you could almost hear the pin drop, at least on the mailing lists. Many others also asked the question before me on several lists and not a single person answered, even when others would pipe up, “Me too!”

By the time the school year was nearing to an end, I had joined (it felt like) a dozen associations from the ALA to the SAA to all the subgroups and student committees. I was receiving so much email, that I had to create a new Gmail account to keep track of it all. The Twitter explosion had taken off and I was obtaining feeds from
librarians and archivists through it and other social networks. At a tech unConference that was held shortly after I finished my first year, I posed the same question to the ending panel and was given a minute list of websites that I was already following and reading.

And it still, shockingly enough, didn’t feel like I had the pulse on of what the heck was going on in my chosen career path.

For nearly a year, I was chasing this library and archival holy grail of sorts to make sure I was in “the know” of everything was going on in these professions. I couldn’t read, listen or write fast enough to keep up. If I was honest, half the time I felt like I was missing out on huge chunks of “need to know information” because I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Recently, after nearly a year of this kind of OCD behavior, I was having a conversation with someone when I was lamenting my thought process on this topic with her. “But Lisa,” she said, “You ARE it. Do you have any idea how many people look to you as you have the pulse on what’s going on?”

Oh.
OH!

I used this overly long example to illustrate a point: “IT” is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In my quest to know “IT” in library and archival sciences, I had become “IT” without knowing it. Once I got my friend’s point, suddenly the need to seek out so much information didn’t seem as important as it used to. Sure, I felt vaguely disappointed there was no secret handshake but the pressure to get all that information that I was supposedly missing, lifted from my shoulders and I felt like I could breathe again.

This concept is very Buddhist, but it’s also very true. When new technologies arrive, whether mechanical or digital, the media and the tech evangelists tend to blow up that particular technologies importance while deeply underscoring that if you’re not using X technology, clearly you must be an old fart or not hip enough to get the lingo or the technology itself.

This is all poppycock, of course. No one can possibly know everything – it is virtual impossible to be an expert on everything; especially in the digital world. But what you, the reader, can do is to know that even by searching out for “IT” on the subject of your choice, you probably have a greater understanding than those around you on the topic.
Even the media, at best, is a neophyte of sorts in this regard.

AMPed plans to take a look at “What is it?” by examining aspects of this ideology from variety of perspectives and experiences. As each one searches of “IT,” so then does the definition of “IT” change – we hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as we do.

Fast, easy and cheap. This was the title of a recipe book my mother created for me when I left home and entered the “real world,” but it can also describe the ideal technology for dealing with digital obsolescence. Who wouldn’t want technology that is fast, easy and cheap? It’s straightforward (“I’d like to order the archival program that is fast, easy and cheap, please”) and it certainly rolls off the tongue nicely. But what exactly does fast, easy and cheap mean?

Let’s tackle each element on its own:
Fast – You can quickly enter information.
Easy – You know exactly what information to enter and where to find it.
Cheap – You can do all this within your ridiculously slashed budget.

Ideal technology solution – DONE! – just like Mom’s enchilada casserole. What’s that, you ask? It’s one of Mom’s fast, easy and cheap recipes: every ingredient comes from a can, my husband hates it and there’s nothing remotely close to authentic about it (unless you think Hormel chili is Mexican food).

Hmm… maybe fast, easy and cheap isn’t the ideal technology after all… Maybe the solution to digital obsolescence is more complex.

For starters, what is digital obsolescence? Neither the SAA glossary nor Merriam-Webster offers a definition, but the latter defines obsolete as “no longer in use.” The Jem Report (http://www.thejemreport.com/content/view/33/74) provides a bit more meaning: “Obsolete means that the equipment in question is no longer valid or able to be used in the modern context.” (The Report also declares obsolete “the most misused word in the history of computing.”)

So if digitally obsolete files can no longer be used in the modern context, than the ideal technology is one that can read and display these files. Well that was easy! (Not to mention fast, and since you’re reading this for free… you get the idea.)

Not so fast. Even if a program reads and displays the files, it may not render the files the same way. So what? Maureen Pennock (http://digitalarchiving.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/authenticity-digital-obsolescence) provides several excellent examples as to why this may concern archivists and it all comes down to authenticity. Programs that simply read and display may alter document formatting, change fonts, remove headers, alter formulas and delete hidden characters; all of which may be valuable to future researchers.

Even the simple act of preserving content by printing it onto paper may cause loss of data, such as mathematical equations embedded in Excel files; loss of image quality, such as an original piece of digital art created at 600 dpi and printed from a desktop printer that can only output 150 dpi; or loss of original point of view, such as a PowerPoint presentation meant to be viewed on a computer screen.

Suddenly the simple issue of reading obsolete files becomes a more complex issue of preserving digital authenticity.

Remember how there’s nothing authentic in enchilada casserole? Sure it’s fast, easy and cheap; but it sacrifices authenticity. Is the same true for technology? In the ideal world we want fast, easy and cheap, but in the real world, we may have to pick one.

Technology relative to the field of Archives is a much-needed friend as well as an enemy of sorts. The merits of technology are easy to note – probably most importantly the quick access it provides to Archives both internally and externally. Items are much easier to keep track of and to locate internally. When items are made available to the public online, research is easier, time is saved, and so are many other resources. There’s no doubt that technology has opened Archives up to the world.

The speed with which information can be uploaded and made available is astounding – whether from a digital camera, digital video recorder, or general file type (Word, Excel, etc.). Gone are the days of waiting days, if not weeks, to update your files and information. Time to clear the library of that old hand-written card catalog. Or is it?

The enemy moniker comes into play in many ways, though, making technology difficult for many Archives and Archivists to embrace. Cost is one of the major issues. Small and large, corporate and not-for-profit Archives struggle to make initial hardware, software, and programming purchases – never mind upgrades and constant format changes and improvements. Not only is the hard cost of upgrades an issue, but also the soft costs of redoing, reformatting, and migrating file types.

Nevermind power failures, unreadable files or disks, or fried hard drives. Not that Mother Nature can’t do plenty of damage to our trusty old hard copies and originals of everything – we can’t make it sound like technology is our only worry as Archivists!

Technology isn’t just software and hardware either. A whole new world has been opened up to Archives with various social media options available to inform others about activities within your Archives as well as promoting and marketing your Archives or services. This blog is one of them! Others include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. The drawback to these relatively new technologies is the time it takes to keep them fresh with regularly updated materials. Another consideration is to decide what you hope to gain – new business, cheap PR, disseminating information as a gesture of goodwill?

While Technology offers plenty of concerns to the Archives community, you can’t really beat all of the advantages it offers us. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run and do some online research for a larger scanner for my next project!